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If there are two things the French team likes to do outside of working hours, it's going into Baikonur on Saturday night to party until the wee hours and to go into town at any time to see something new. (I must admit to a weakness for the latter, myself.) Yesterday, events conspired to combine the two into a "perfect storm" of sleep deprivation for the French team.
The town trip departure was moved up by an hour, to 9 am, to enable folks to see whatever it was that was planned to commemorate Victory Day1 in the main square in Baikonur. There was a sepulchral silence on the bus going into town, as pretty much all of the French team was sound asleep, having returned from town at around 5 am.
After our group disembarked from the bus behind the Palermo Pizzeria and began walking down the main street (named "Arbat" because it, like its famous namesake in Moscow, is a pedestrian mall) an amplified voice from the direction of the square stopped speaking and a recorded song began playing through the sound system. We got to the square just as formations of cadets and Ministry of Emergencies troops were being dismissed.
Like just about any soldiers on parade in their home town, the formations broke up into family groups that would pose with their loved ones in uniform.
More common were small groups of three, consisting of a uniformed serviceman, a wife, and a small child or infant. As I looked around, images from my past came to mind, and they weren't substantially different from what was unfolding in front of my eyes, and I felt my eyes getting wet.
There were more people out and about in Baikonur than I have ever seen at one time. Many people wore victory ribbons with a simple design of alternating orange and black stripes running lengthwise along the ribbon's fabric. I saw one wrinkled old woman in the crowd wearing three ancient-looking medals, and wondered if she was one of the 18 surviving veterans of the Great Patriotic War who live today in Baikonur. She was swallowed by the crowd before I could ask.
Away from the square, there was a more festive holiday feeling in the air. Vendors sold a variety of goods of every kind, although unlike such public celebrations in the United States, there were no stands hawking food items.
There are, instead, a number of restaurants along the Arbat, from the Akhtamar Armenian restaurant near the town square, to the Palermo Pizzeria at the other end of the pedestrian mall. As I walked toward the Palermo, I was tempted by the aroma of grilling shashlyk - skewers of various kinds of meat and fish typically served with thin-sliced marinated onions - but it was too early to eat, and as I am in no danger of expiring from starvation, I kept moving.
A little past the Akhtamar, I spied a small crowd standing behind an artist who was intent on capturing a portrait of a little girl in pigtails who wore a yellow dress. The crowd seemed more interesting to me than the artist's subject.
Beyond the artist, I caught sight of what looked like posters in the window of a storefront under renovation. As I approached, it became clear that what I was looking at was an exhibition of Victory Day artwork done by local students who attended a school devoted to the development of their artistic skills.
Some of the images were not at all surprising, given the subject matter and the age of the artist. Here is an image of the Battle of Moscow by a 10-year old artist:
And here is a part of a painting by a 14-year-old, of a soldier's homecoming (the uneven coloring is the result of a reflection captured from the plate glass):
I have to say, when I look at the depiction of the little girl as she hugs her daddy, and of her daddy standing there with his arms spread wide, a lump forms in my throat, and I give silent thanks that I never had to leave a wife and child behind when I served in the Marines.
Take a look at the little girl in the painting! She not only has her arms around her daddy's hips, but she is leaning into him, trying to get as close as she can. I think the artist, a girl named Anar, captured this little girl's moment perfectly.
Some of the other art in the exhibit depicted well-known images, such as the one of Russian sailors storming ashore to fight the Germans after their ships had been sunk under them, and some depicted combat, with its blood, dirt, and thousand-yard stares. Yet there were also pictures of other subjects: medics tending to the wounded under fire as well as other images of soldiers returning home from the front.
As I stood in front of the exhibit, with my eyes wet again, I noted a steady, casual stream of adults and children who stopped and looked at the artwork with interest. All in all, it would appear that Victory Day means a heck of a lot more to people over here than even Memorial Day back home.
By the time I got to the Palermo, one of the French team had attached himself to me, and we had a bite to eat and walked on further, to the market. Despite the holiday, the market was busy as ever. I bought some green "gunpowder" tea from Samarkand and some sour yellow raisins. Over at the next vendor's stall, my companion haggled over a selection of various kinds of tasty nuts.
At the appointed hour, the bus appeared and our group boarded for the hour-plus trip back to the hotel area. Always mindful of photo opportunities, the bus stopped to allow some of the more adventurous participants to disembark and cross the boulevard and visit the full-scale mockup of a Soyuz launch vehicle on display not far from the main post office. (It's just not the kind of thing you can see in many places, you know?)
The day had been a long one, with many new sights and impressions to absorb. Along with most of the other passengers, I slept most of the way back to our hotel.
1Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, is commemorated on May 8 in the West; when adjusted to Moscow time, the date is May 9.
* * *
My other topic entry for this week's LJ Idol is located here.
The town trip departure was moved up by an hour, to 9 am, to enable folks to see whatever it was that was planned to commemorate Victory Day1 in the main square in Baikonur. There was a sepulchral silence on the bus going into town, as pretty much all of the French team was sound asleep, having returned from town at around 5 am.
After our group disembarked from the bus behind the Palermo Pizzeria and began walking down the main street (named "Arbat" because it, like its famous namesake in Moscow, is a pedestrian mall) an amplified voice from the direction of the square stopped speaking and a recorded song began playing through the sound system. We got to the square just as formations of cadets and Ministry of Emergencies troops were being dismissed.
Like just about any soldiers on parade in their home town, the formations broke up into family groups that would pose with their loved ones in uniform.
More common were small groups of three, consisting of a uniformed serviceman, a wife, and a small child or infant. As I looked around, images from my past came to mind, and they weren't substantially different from what was unfolding in front of my eyes, and I felt my eyes getting wet.
There were more people out and about in Baikonur than I have ever seen at one time. Many people wore victory ribbons with a simple design of alternating orange and black stripes running lengthwise along the ribbon's fabric. I saw one wrinkled old woman in the crowd wearing three ancient-looking medals, and wondered if she was one of the 18 surviving veterans of the Great Patriotic War who live today in Baikonur. She was swallowed by the crowd before I could ask.
Away from the square, there was a more festive holiday feeling in the air. Vendors sold a variety of goods of every kind, although unlike such public celebrations in the United States, there were no stands hawking food items.
There are, instead, a number of restaurants along the Arbat, from the Akhtamar Armenian restaurant near the town square, to the Palermo Pizzeria at the other end of the pedestrian mall. As I walked toward the Palermo, I was tempted by the aroma of grilling shashlyk - skewers of various kinds of meat and fish typically served with thin-sliced marinated onions - but it was too early to eat, and as I am in no danger of expiring from starvation, I kept moving.
A little past the Akhtamar, I spied a small crowd standing behind an artist who was intent on capturing a portrait of a little girl in pigtails who wore a yellow dress. The crowd seemed more interesting to me than the artist's subject.
Beyond the artist, I caught sight of what looked like posters in the window of a storefront under renovation. As I approached, it became clear that what I was looking at was an exhibition of Victory Day artwork done by local students who attended a school devoted to the development of their artistic skills.
Some of the images were not at all surprising, given the subject matter and the age of the artist. Here is an image of the Battle of Moscow by a 10-year old artist:
And here is a part of a painting by a 14-year-old, of a soldier's homecoming (the uneven coloring is the result of a reflection captured from the plate glass):
I have to say, when I look at the depiction of the little girl as she hugs her daddy, and of her daddy standing there with his arms spread wide, a lump forms in my throat, and I give silent thanks that I never had to leave a wife and child behind when I served in the Marines.
Take a look at the little girl in the painting! She not only has her arms around her daddy's hips, but she is leaning into him, trying to get as close as she can. I think the artist, a girl named Anar, captured this little girl's moment perfectly.
Some of the other art in the exhibit depicted well-known images, such as the one of Russian sailors storming ashore to fight the Germans after their ships had been sunk under them, and some depicted combat, with its blood, dirt, and thousand-yard stares. Yet there were also pictures of other subjects: medics tending to the wounded under fire as well as other images of soldiers returning home from the front.
As I stood in front of the exhibit, with my eyes wet again, I noted a steady, casual stream of adults and children who stopped and looked at the artwork with interest. All in all, it would appear that Victory Day means a heck of a lot more to people over here than even Memorial Day back home.
By the time I got to the Palermo, one of the French team had attached himself to me, and we had a bite to eat and walked on further, to the market. Despite the holiday, the market was busy as ever. I bought some green "gunpowder" tea from Samarkand and some sour yellow raisins. Over at the next vendor's stall, my companion haggled over a selection of various kinds of tasty nuts.
At the appointed hour, the bus appeared and our group boarded for the hour-plus trip back to the hotel area. Always mindful of photo opportunities, the bus stopped to allow some of the more adventurous participants to disembark and cross the boulevard and visit the full-scale mockup of a Soyuz launch vehicle on display not far from the main post office. (It's just not the kind of thing you can see in many places, you know?)
The day had been a long one, with many new sights and impressions to absorb. Along with most of the other passengers, I slept most of the way back to our hotel.
1Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, is commemorated on May 8 in the West; when adjusted to Moscow time, the date is May 9.
